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One Helluva Race, now where\'s the Pub

Forest / 10.08.2007

The organizers of the 2007 hells bells should be proud. They created the catalyst for an entirely new mental condition I have called Imbilalgia. Symptoms include mood swings, facial twitching, escalating Tourette’s syndrome, short term amnesia, random violence, hallucinations, disorientation and body wide cramping. While admitting to possessing only rudimentary psychiatric knowledge, I can attest that each member of our team was symptom free while standing on the start line. The descent into mental illness began soon after the starters siren sounded. The cunning organizers had decided to “mess with our minds� by providing us with dodgy maps and only portions of the whole course. Ultimately it was more than our minds that got messed with. This is our story.

It all seemed OK. It was a beautiful day. A member of our team (“Jack�- he knew jack-shit about navigation) suggested beginning the day with a ride to the nearest pub for a few quiet ales. Latent alcoholism is no chuckling matter but how we chuckled (we weren’t chuckling later). Later we were to realize this was an entirely sensible suggestion. Fifteen beers, shouted drunken insults and a good old punch up would have been better to build teamwork than what we were about to endure. We were given the first two legs of the race and planned ahead. Getting our boxes sorted we made sure our dinner was in box A and breakfast in box C (anorexia did not surface as a symptom). No need to overload box B with food, we needed that for our kayaking leg which we assumed would only take 2-3 hours. Never assume.

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